Language guide
Turkish Names: Meanings, Origins & Traditions
Turkish names are recorded here in the modern Turkish Latin alphabet, which replaced the Arabic-based Ottoman script in 1928. Because Ottoman Turkish absorbed a large Arabic and Persian vocabulary, many familiar Turkish names, such as Elif or Emir, go back to Arabic or Persian words, while others, such as Arslan or Aynur, contain native Turkic elements. Each entry states which of these applies, based on the cited sources.
- Published names
- 7961
- Scripts in our data
- Latin
- ISO 639-1
- tr
Browse Turkish names
3,744 names · page 27 of 156
- “choice, excellent”From Persian · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “the planet Jupiter”From Arabic · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “blessing, abundance”From Arabic · Turkish, KazakhBoy3 syllablesEditorial
- “chainmail, particularly of high-quality steel”From Persian · Turkish, KazakhBoy2 syllablesLikely
- “snowdrop”From Kurdish · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “snowflake”From Persian · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “keepsake, memento”From Persian · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “safe, free of fault; pure”From Arabic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “excellent, surpassing her peers in beauty”From Arabic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “beryl”TurkishGirl2 syllablesDocumented
- “high, exalted”From Persian · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “innocent, pure”From Arabic · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “hard, arduous”From Mongolian · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesDocumented
- “lightning-like, bright”From Arabic · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “strong, firm-natured person”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “firm arrow”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “strong in essence”From Turkic · TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
- “object, thing”From Persian · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “young, shapely woman”From Persian · Turkish, UyghurUnisex2 syllablesDocumented
- “clear, limpid”From Arabic · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “all, whole, a lot”From Turkic · TurkishGirl2 syllablesEditorial
- “smiling face; merriment”From Arabic · TurkishGirl3 syllablesEditorial
- “good tidings”From Arabic · TurkishUnisex3 syllablesEditorial
- “frost or dew; mist; light snowfall”TurkishUnisex2 syllablesEditorial
How Turkish names are written
Modern Turkish uses a 29-letter Latin alphabet introduced in 1928. Letters such as ç, ğ, ı, İ, ö, ş and ü matter for spelling: Gülnur and Gulnur are different spellings, and the dotless ı is a separate letter from i. Search on this site ignores these marks, but entries always show the documented spelling.
Where Turkish names come from
A name used in Turkish is not automatically Turkish in origin. Here is how the documented origins of the Turkish names published so far break down (a name with elements from two languages counts under both):
- Turkic4158
- Arabic2170
- Persian1209
- Greek42
- Mongolic39
- Hebrew28
- French14
Counted from 7961 published entries. Each name page explains its own etymology with sources.
Turkish names by meaning
Explore related languages
Turkish belongs to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, together with Azerbaijani and Turkmen. Related languages share many words, but a name is listed under a language only when it is documented there.
Other languages: Uyghur · Kazakh · Kyrgyz · Uzbek · Tatar · Bashkir · Tajik
References for this page
- Wikipedia contributors. Turkic languages. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1377797900. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Wikipedia contributors. Turkish alphabet. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1381762599. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.

